SHAKESPEARE

At the Central School of Speech and Drama, Taft was trained primarily by David Carey, former vocal coach of the RSC, with additional workshops by Cecily Berry, Patsy Rodenberg and Sally Grace. In the U.S. Taft has also attended workshops with Arthur Lessac and Kristen Linklater.

Using a very physical approach involving Tai Chi, Yoga and Alexander Technique, Ellen Taft bases her voice teaching on maintaining the spontaneous connection between the thought, the breath and the text.

"The main job of a voice teacher is to get students breathing naturally from their diaphragms, so that the breath stimulates the thought and even the most difficult text will be vocalized beautifully and naturally"

Taft takes students through a full workout involving movement, breathing, alignment, diction exercises for clarity and textural analysis.